When people think of the New England Patriots football team, their success over nearly the last 2 decades is what likely comes to mind. From 5 Super Bowl titles to longtime quarterback Tom Brady, it’s not surprising. However not everything with the team has always been sunshine and rainbows.

I know – as a longtime fan and season ticket holder, I lived through some of the embarrassing times of the Pats. However these stories stretch back even before I was born! The scrappy, low-budgeted team that didn’t have a set home stadium for its first decade that became one of the most valuable, treasured – and hated – team; it’s a Cinderella story.

Sean Glennon tells many of the positive and not-so positive stories in The Good The Bad The Ugly New England Patriots, chronicling nearly the first half-century of the team. I knew this would be a great book as I really enjoyed Glennon’s first book on the team, This Pats Year, which chronicled one season of following the team and their fans. I found the book in final boxes I unpacked after a recent move, and had forgotten I had it. Where it was a treat to find it, I don’t remember when or how I had acquired it. All things considered, I have a few takeaways for both fans and non-fans of the team.

I had forgotten many stories about the Patriots – There were a lot of nuances and details of some of the highs and lows of the team over the years I had simply forgotten. Call it what you like, but many times as I was reading the pages of this book, I said a lot of “oh, yea’s” and “wow’s” to some of the tales told by Glennon. That alone made reading them along with the stories I remembered an enjoyable experience.

Journals like this need to be updated – It wasn’t until I was about a quarter way thru the book that I looked and found it came out in 2008 – 10 years ago! Why it took me so long to read it I can’t say, but I am glad that I finally did. As a lot has transpired with the team since then, it would be great to read an update to it. I won’t hold my breath on that thought for when I tweeted Glennon about it, I didn’t get the sense he shared my sentiment!

Where The Good The Bad The Ugly New England Patriots is written for fans of the team, anyone who is a football fan, especially those who lived through the years covered in the book, would find it a good read. Which is what I hope my friend whom I gave the book to felt as well, as he also lives away from New England and these kinds of stories may also elicit the same responses in him they did for me.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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As the new year starts, for many it is also the start of the annual review process with their employer. Where this process varies from company to company, typically it entails creating goals for the coming year, taking into consideration the goals for the team, organization, group etc. and then at the end of the year measuring if you met those goals or not along with feedback that was accumulated throughout the year.

Ask any person who goes through this process and they will likely tell you they would rather spend time standing in line at the DMV! Many people feel it's a waste of time, not only in the fact that they have to spend time working on it but also at the end of the year a couple of things typically happen - one, they don't get a raise or a bonus, and two, for the first time they learn at the end of the year of something that happened months ago or even earlier in the year.

When you get written up on something in December that happened in March, how can you really do anything about it, nine months later, to affect any change? In other words, the performance appraisal process is broken, and I have an idea to fix it -penalize the manager that gives you a poor review or feedback at the end of the year as an afterthought when they had the opportunity to tell you earlier.

Say what?

If you think about it, at the end of the year when someone is giving you a review, their own personal review doesn't necessarily reflect yours. It should, for a manager should be measured on the overall performance of their team, as they should be ensuring their team is excelling at all times. Some manager do believe in this (including, fortunately, the manager I have now), however many managers don't want to be bothered by this throughout the year and as a result giving a poor performance review at the end of the year is really no skin off their teeth and comes naturally to them. Sometimes that poor performance review is based on asking others who have worked with you to provide their input, which is often referred to as a 360° review process. Even when organizations say they have a "immediate feedback mechanism" to let people know when they do well or when they do poorly, it rarely happens this way. Finding out about a problem at the end of the year when there's really nothing that can be done about it serves nobody well.

If the person giving the negative feedback is giving it too late, it is they themselves that should be marked down for it in the end of the year process. This gives the person giving the poor review skin in the game and makes them part of the solution. The whole idea is to inform people at the time something happens that something was unsatisfactory or could've been done better or could've been corrected. When it's given at that point, the person that has the opportunity to make the correction, discuss impacts on their workload that impacts their success, identify the need for education or training or greater organizational issues that need to be addressed that the manager may not even be aware of, et. al. The person and their manager or whomever is giving the negative feedback can then together put a plan in place to lead to success, along with a timeframe and measurement.

Been there, wish it was done

Many times throughout my career I have been on the receiving end of negative feedback too late to do anything about it. When I asked why nothing was brought up sooner, I was never given a definitive answer, namely as the review process did not require it. On the flipside, I have had many managers who gave me continuous feedback, comments, adjustments, etc. as I worked with them, and this was not only greatly appreciated but led to my success and the success of the project I was working on. I also hear this from friends and colleagues that hear of such late-in-the-game feedback they can do nothing about, which simply makes the workplace even less tolerable.

Deconstructing Giving Timely Feedback

Why not strike while the iron is hot, and give feedback while it is fresh, meaningful and can produce a positive outcome? This takes facing issues head-on, something many managers may not be comfortable with or other senior people don't want to be bothered with. By making these mid-game corrections, it allows everyone to succeed, and may also impact the bottom line of the team or organization. This investment in one's team is as important as any training or materials you spend money on them, and can reap even greater rewards.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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To anyone reading this, THANK YOU! I have been writing and posting to this blog now for 11 years. Where many of you have been reading for part of the time, there are a few who have been reading the whole time. No matter even if this is the first time you have read something here at The Hot Iron, kudos and karma now and throughout 2018!

When I think 11, the first thing that comes to mind is 11 Alive, what New York TV station WPIX used to use as their tag line back in the 70’s and 80’s. For some reason, it was part of the cable package in Massachusetts when I was a kid, and here I share with you their jingle – watch the embedded video below or follow this link to watch it.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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There are no shortage of books, blogs and articles out there offering career advice. In fact, you are reading something from one of them right now! If anything, they all have something in common – long narratives, loaded with stories and real-life examples, explaining in great detail the author’s point-of-view.

The new book, Things Are What You Make of Them – Life Advice for Creatives by Adam J. Kurtz, is a book that, as you can guess by the title, is in the above-mentioned genre, but its format and structures breaks the above-mentioned mold. Where it offers career advice, its format is unique – there are just over a dozen “chapters” – each beginning with a description, then a hand-written list of 8 points, followed by 8 pages, also hand-written, corresponding to each point on pages no more than 4 inches by 6 inches.

As I said, this book is unique, and refreshing. The advice is written with a mix of Kurtz’s sense of humor and his brutal honesty. It’s a short read, which you can finish in less than an hour, but gives you a lot to think about for a long time and easy to remember – each page has a colored border by chapter, and all pages are perforated for easy removal and hanging up in a prominent place.

As you can guess, this book gave many things to takeaway from it.

Define creative – As the book’s subtitle is “Life Advice for Creatives,” some of you reading this may think, this book is not for me as I am not “creative” in the sense of a designer or artist, as the author is. To borrow a phrase, bollocks! Many of us, where we may be in a corporate job that is not defined with words such as “artistic” are actually creative in nature – we are using our brains and imagination to find creative solutions for our employers or clients. To borrow another phrase, this one by from Kurtz’s own definition of “creative” in the book, it is “… a person who defines themselves, in some way, by their creative passion or profession.” I love this description and feel it suits myself, and it may suit you as well – think about it.

Take away what works for you, literally – In any book, you can find yourself liking and disliking various parts of it. This is in fact why I write takeaways from books rather than reviews of them. With this book if something resonates with you, you can then literally and easily remove it as all pages of the book are perforated, then post it someplace as a reminder or inspiration.

More books are needed in this format – From its small size to its vibrant colors to perforated pages to its concise advice, more books should be crafted this way. It reminds me of the book 52 Motivational Quotations for Salespeople by my good friend Tom Cruz, which has each quote on a separate page so they can be removed and displayed prominently. Especially in our fast-paced digital world, it allows us to take a brief time out, read and reflect.

When I heard about Things Are What You Make of Them, I preordered it right away. I learn about Kurtz and his creative work from his book 1 Page at a Time, which I bought and am still using as an (almost) daily creative outlet. His light-hearted approach has drawn me to his work, and it makes me smile and think at the same time.

After finishing this book, I decided to give it to someone who is a very creative person, and am eager to hear their thoughts on it as they read through it.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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With great anticipation I am pleased to announce a networking event for people who work in the tech and creative fields in Northeast Wisconsin. Introducing dMorning.

So what is dMorning?

The idea behind dMorning is relatively simple - informal networking before the busy workday starts, with no set rules and no agenda. Since I moved to the Fox Valley of Wisconsin this past summer, I have been looking for something like this, as I work in the Web and I am looking to meet people who work in similar fields in my new home area.

In the past I have hosted a variety of meetups where I used to live in Chicago – some specific and some general – and I have found the latter to be more interesting. A casual gathering of people to talk about what they are working on, sharing stories and bouncing ideas off each other… this is something I have wanted to restart for a while, and why not here? My plan is for this to be a monthly event.

The first dMorning will be on Friday, November 17 at 7:30 am at All Seasons Coffeehouse in Appleton, which is conveniently located off I-41 at Wisconsin Avenue. I only say it goes until 9:30 am as that is likely as long as I will be there. There is no cost for dMorning, you only have to pay for any beverages or food you purchase from this locally-owned business.

What’s in a name?

You may be wondering about the name, dMorning. As I sought out a name for this, I didn’t want to pick something limiting. On the Web site at dMorning.com there are some ideas of what the “d” could stand for.

Hope to see you there!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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